The insurrection can readily be appreciated as a historical moment because it was an unprecedented one. The U. S. Capitol had never been invaded by Americans, even if Washington and New York were assaulted by Bin Laden and, much previously, by the British. Not even our current pandemic is unprecedented, though not in anyone’s memory. Other such events are historical because they are momentous. These include Pearl Harbor and D Day and Antietam, all wartime occasions which altered American history, just as had economic events such as the industrialism of the Andrew Carnegie generation and the Great Depression and suburbanization in the Fifties and Sixties. Certain other events which seem momentous when they happened did not alter the American landscape. That includes the destruction of the World Trade Center, which, however, did not seem to have significantly altered the New York landscape, it instead becoming just office buildings, now filled with family based coops and the rest of the paraphernalia that go along with urban life rather than a permanent mark of devastation, something even Germany could overcome even if what abides in it is its scar of history.
So rather than a standard for an historical event being its unprecedented nature, the standard of a historical moment is that something important has changed and that has already become clear in the storming of the capitol. Joe Biden, whom I have said is notoriously ineloquent, still manages to find just the right word to conceptualize the heart of the matter. He said on his inauguration day that democracy is “precious” and “fragile”. That means that the continuous peaceful transition of power ever since George Washington was succeeded by John Adams and the even more momentous transition from Adams to Jefferson, the two of them from different parties, has for the first time been breached, people overtly stating that they are out to subvert Congress so that Trump will not be unseated as President, a move that Trump supported. It is such a violation of law and custom that it has to be answered and so many people, mostly Democrats, think that Trump should be convicted. The reason for doing so is not to put Trump in jail, which is not what a Senate conviction would do, or even to bar him from federal office, or even to take away his pension, should that happen. It is just to further disgrace him for what he did, making him as shamed as we can be, short of executing him. That would help make the scar that will form around the insurgency on Jan. 6th last so that a regular reminder of the event and also the mark on Trump as a traitorous figure will be reminded of it. Then we will be recoiled by the events of a potential coup and so take heed that it will not happen again. It will be an event for America as was Guy Faukes Day for the British. Without scars, there is no healing. The nation has been damaged by its awareness of just how fragile it is, even if it did persevere in that the military, state and federal judges, election officials, and many others continued to treat only legitimate processes to be upheld, rather than rattled by the moment into allowing themselves to be pressured by the Trumpists. Democracy withstood the onslaught but there is always a next time that is bound to happen because it is now a precedent and because the circumstances will be less propitious, as would be the case if a demagogue President were a more accomplished conspirator than was Trump.
There is another way to think about it. Jan. 6th can be thought of as an aberration, unworthy to be remembered and so soon forgotten as we get back to politics as usual. There is no need to punish, only to be rid of him. The scars will heal themselves and the nation will disregard the fluke event that happened that day. Republicans will go back to doing what they have done sincere long before Trump. They will be obstructionist and obscurantist, moaning the fact that the times were better in the Fifties, when Blacks and women knew their place, or the Eighties, when Reagan smiled over the nation, or when they claimed that Bush had invaded Iraq on a pretext that was mistaken rather than a lie. Trump came; Trump went. Let the historians rank him among the Presidents. What they say doesn’t matter so long as the republicans have rehabilitated themselves well enough so that they have a chance to recapture both houses of Congress in 2022. Remember, that Nixon was punished only in that Carter was elected for only one term and reagan put the Republicans in power in 1980. Not very long for the Republicans to be in the White House for what is at the least the very bad judgment of having nominated and elected a President who was a disaster. But that idea presumes that Trumpism is gone when Trump is gone, while it is the case that it might be that Trunp has fashioned or just encouraged the shift of the Republican Party from Conservatives to being demagogues and insurrectionists, those people afraid of republicans to criticize their not so fringy fringe lest they get primaried.
These two points of view can be seen as either a watershed or else just a fashion no longer in fashion, and so as alternative principles of what politics is like at the moment which determines how politicians will make their decisions. Moreover, the politicians are likely as not to determine which of the two courses to take, and the Republicans have a month or so to decide, both in that they will decide on what to do about the Senate trial of impeachment and also what they will do in the way of legislation, how they will regard Trump. The decision or even the basis for the decision remains at the moment murky. Some Republicans can rehabilitate themselves as upstanding anti-insurrectionists by voting to convict Trump, however much they abetted Trump before or even after the insurrection. They wash away their bloody hands by becoming constitutionalists. Mitch McConnell seems to be angling in that direction of putting things behind him by now denouncing Trump and maybe supporting conviction, it depending on whether he can corral enough Republican Senators to join the condemnation of the ex-President. Rather, he will fight on stopping Biden from the Coronavirus relief package so that he can run on the Congressional elections of 2022 as a failure, which is what he tried to do when he opposed as much as possible from the Obama legislative package.
On the other hand, there are Republicans who do not feel the need to wipe themselves off from the bloody shirt. Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley will not separate at all from the insurrectionists while claiming that all they want to do is create healing. Lindsay Graham also wants healing, though he acknowledges that there was an insurrection, and Kevin McCarthy, the Republican leader in the House, wavered for a bit, thinking the insurrection was bad, and now is in denial of whether there was anything to it. He and many other Republican Congresspeople will deny it ever happened even if many were voting to overturn a legitimate election. They will push through by denying any embarrassment. So there is no need for an inquest or a truth and reconciliation commission because it never happened. They think that denial will set you free, not even offering a sign that you have now come right again. By that light, McConnell is a patriot and an upstanding man.
Nor can Democrats do anything other than the trial in the Senate to upright the balance so that Republicans are part of the loyal opposition rather than just the opposition. Senators have in many times been so outlandish and divisive, such as was the case with the pact whereby Southern Demicratic Senators, from Strom Thurmond to William Fulbright, signed a pledge that segregation would go on forever, to think that Democrats will ostracize Republicans for not even now swearing allegiance to the nation by voting to convict Trump. It is up to the Republicans to do it and Joe Biden knows them well enough that he has finessed the issue, leaving it to Congress, rather than using up any political energy to think that the republicans will address their wrong.
The fragmentation of Republicans between insurrectionist deniers, insurrectionist supporters, and those Republicans making amends, makes the trial in the Senate all the more important because it may clarify issues sufficiently so that sufficient Republicans may decide to turn away from Trump so as to restore some measure of political comity in America. They will turn the corner of the easy expedient of denouncing Trump even if they had supported his insurrectionary aches. The trouble is, however, that they do not have shame or even expediency as their resources. What Hillary Clinton said about some voters is also true of most of the Republican Congressional caucus as well as their Senatorial cucus: they are deplorable and irredeemable. There is a deep anti-democratic flaw in their politics. I said years ago and it still stands that every Republican President including and since Nixon (with the exception of Gerald Ford) was subject to impeachment. Reagan had traded hostages for oil and used the money to fund the contras, which was contrary to the Boland Amendment that had prohibited funds to do so and so was a clear infringement on the constitutional issue that all monies spent by the government had to be levied through Congress. This is fundamental to the balance between Congress and the Executive, not a trivial matter. George H. W. Bush knew about what was happening and just said he was out of the room when it was discussed. George W. Bush may indeed not have tracked very well that Vice President Chaney was engaged in overt lies to give the nation an excuse to invade Iraq, and both should have been responsible for that. And Trump, of course, instigated the assault on the Capitol. On the other hand, the impeachment of Clinton was payback for the Watergate investigation. It did not rise to a serious crime against the nation. So Republicans will make frivolous impeachments against Democratic Presidents while Democrats forebear to move to impeach Republicans except for the most serious of reasons. Something has to happen through some civil war among the Republicans so that what remains can be a responsible party capable of governing.
So rather than a standard for an historical event being its unprecedented nature, the standard of a historical moment is that something important has changed and that has already become clear in the storming of the capitol. Joe Biden, whom I have said is notoriously ineloquent, still manages to find just the right word to conceptualize the heart of the matter. He said on his inauguration day that democracy is “precious” and “fragile”. That means that the continuous peaceful transition of power ever since George Washington was succeeded by John Adams and the even more momentous transition from Adams to Jefferson, the two of them from different parties, has for the first time been breached, people overtly stating that they are out to subvert Congress so that Trump will not be unseated as President, a move that Trump supported. It is such a violation of law and custom that it has to be answered and so many people, mostly Democrats, think that Trump should be convicted. The reason for doing so is not to put Trump in jail, which is not what a Senate conviction would do, or even to bar him from federal office, or even to take away his pension, should that happen. It is just to further disgrace him for what he did, making him as shamed as we can be, short of executing him. That would help make the scar that will form around the insurgency on Jan. 6th last so that a regular reminder of the event and also the mark on Trump as a traitorous figure will be reminded of it. Then we will be recoiled by the events of a potential coup and so take heed that it will not happen again. It will be an event for America as was Guy Faukes Day for the British. Without scars, there is no healing. The nation has been damaged by its awareness of just how fragile it is, even if it did persevere in that the military, state and federal judges, election officials, and many others continued to treat only legitimate processes to be upheld, rather than rattled by the moment into allowing themselves to be pressured by the Trumpists. Democracy withstood the onslaught but there is always a next time that is bound to happen because it is now a precedent and because the circumstances will be less propitious, as would be the case if a demagogue President were a more accomplished conspirator than was Trump.
There is another way to think about it. Jan. 6th can be thought of as an aberration, unworthy to be remembered and so soon forgotten as we get back to politics as usual. There is no need to punish, only to be rid of him. The scars will heal themselves and the nation will disregard the fluke event that happened that day. Republicans will go back to doing what they have done sincere long before Trump. They will be obstructionist and obscurantist, moaning the fact that the times were better in the Fifties, when Blacks and women knew their place, or the Eighties, when Reagan smiled over the nation, or when they claimed that Bush had invaded Iraq on a pretext that was mistaken rather than a lie. Trump came; Trump went. Let the historians rank him among the Presidents. What they say doesn’t matter so long as the republicans have rehabilitated themselves well enough so that they have a chance to recapture both houses of Congress in 2022. Remember, that Nixon was punished only in that Carter was elected for only one term and reagan put the Republicans in power in 1980. Not very long for the Republicans to be in the White House for what is at the least the very bad judgment of having nominated and elected a President who was a disaster. But that idea presumes that Trumpism is gone when Trump is gone, while it is the case that it might be that Trunp has fashioned or just encouraged the shift of the Republican Party from Conservatives to being demagogues and insurrectionists, those people afraid of republicans to criticize their not so fringy fringe lest they get primaried.
These two points of view can be seen as either a watershed or else just a fashion no longer in fashion, and so as alternative principles of what politics is like at the moment which determines how politicians will make their decisions. Moreover, the politicians are likely as not to determine which of the two courses to take, and the Republicans have a month or so to decide, both in that they will decide on what to do about the Senate trial of impeachment and also what they will do in the way of legislation, how they will regard Trump. The decision or even the basis for the decision remains at the moment murky. Some Republicans can rehabilitate themselves as upstanding anti-insurrectionists by voting to convict Trump, however much they abetted Trump before or even after the insurrection. They wash away their bloody hands by becoming constitutionalists. Mitch McConnell seems to be angling in that direction of putting things behind him by now denouncing Trump and maybe supporting conviction, it depending on whether he can corral enough Republican Senators to join the condemnation of the ex-President. Rather, he will fight on stopping Biden from the Coronavirus relief package so that he can run on the Congressional elections of 2022 as a failure, which is what he tried to do when he opposed as much as possible from the Obama legislative package.
On the other hand, there are Republicans who do not feel the need to wipe themselves off from the bloody shirt. Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley will not separate at all from the insurrectionists while claiming that all they want to do is create healing. Lindsay Graham also wants healing, though he acknowledges that there was an insurrection, and Kevin McCarthy, the Republican leader in the House, wavered for a bit, thinking the insurrection was bad, and now is in denial of whether there was anything to it. He and many other Republican Congresspeople will deny it ever happened even if many were voting to overturn a legitimate election. They will push through by denying any embarrassment. So there is no need for an inquest or a truth and reconciliation commission because it never happened. They think that denial will set you free, not even offering a sign that you have now come right again. By that light, McConnell is a patriot and an upstanding man.
Nor can Democrats do anything other than the trial in the Senate to upright the balance so that Republicans are part of the loyal opposition rather than just the opposition. Senators have in many times been so outlandish and divisive, such as was the case with the pact whereby Southern Demicratic Senators, from Strom Thurmond to William Fulbright, signed a pledge that segregation would go on forever, to think that Democrats will ostracize Republicans for not even now swearing allegiance to the nation by voting to convict Trump. It is up to the Republicans to do it and Joe Biden knows them well enough that he has finessed the issue, leaving it to Congress, rather than using up any political energy to think that the republicans will address their wrong.
The fragmentation of Republicans between insurrectionist deniers, insurrectionist supporters, and those Republicans making amends, makes the trial in the Senate all the more important because it may clarify issues sufficiently so that sufficient Republicans may decide to turn away from Trump so as to restore some measure of political comity in America. They will turn the corner of the easy expedient of denouncing Trump even if they had supported his insurrectionary aches. The trouble is, however, that they do not have shame or even expediency as their resources. What Hillary Clinton said about some voters is also true of most of the Republican Congressional caucus as well as their Senatorial cucus: they are deplorable and irredeemable. There is a deep anti-democratic flaw in their politics. I said years ago and it still stands that every Republican President including and since Nixon (with the exception of Gerald Ford) was subject to impeachment. Reagan had traded hostages for oil and used the money to fund the contras, which was contrary to the Boland Amendment that had prohibited funds to do so and so was a clear infringement on the constitutional issue that all monies spent by the government had to be levied through Congress. This is fundamental to the balance between Congress and the Executive, not a trivial matter. George H. W. Bush knew about what was happening and just said he was out of the room when it was discussed. George W. Bush may indeed not have tracked very well that Vice President Chaney was engaged in overt lies to give the nation an excuse to invade Iraq, and both should have been responsible for that. And Trump, of course, instigated the assault on the Capitol. On the other hand, the impeachment of Clinton was payback for the Watergate investigation. It did not rise to a serious crime against the nation. So Republicans will make frivolous impeachments against Democratic Presidents while Democrats forebear to move to impeach Republicans except for the most serious of reasons. Something has to happen through some civil war among the Republicans so that what remains can be a responsible party capable of governing.